


Concussion Risk in Verbal Sparring: A Systematic Review

by cactustree



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s01e17 E.B.E., F/M, Season 1, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:15:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28576605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cactustree/pseuds/cactustree
Summary: That scene (yes, that one) from E.B.E.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 1
Kudos: 22





	Concussion Risk in Verbal Sparring: A Systematic Review

I was actually in a pretty good mood when we arrived back at the office after our visit with the Lone Gunmen, despite coming out twenty dollars poorer than I’d gone in. I wasn’t at all surprised to learn that Mulder associated with people like that, but the fact that even those guys thought his UFO theory was ludicrous had given me enough of a boost to carry me through the rest of the day. Or so I thought.

“Those were the most paranoid people I have ever met,” I said. It didn’t seem like Mulder was listening—he’d left me to fill out the expense reports while he peered through a huge magnifying glass at the photos we’d taken in Tennessee—but I was too busy feeling self-satisfied and trying to coax some ink out of my pen to care. “I don’t know how you could think that what they say is even remotely plausible.”

“I think it’s remotely plausible that someone might think you’re hot,” Mulder replied without missing a beat. I guess he was listening after all.

There’s a window of time in which you can respond to something like that. It’s a very small window—small enough, in fact, that it’s almost nonexistent. You need to be ready preemptively, need to have your response locked and loaded, and to do that, you need to know it’s coming. You can’t return a serve if you don’t even know you’re playing tennis; you’ll just get clocked in the head.

I didn’t know we were playing tennis, so I got clocked in the head. And the injustice of it is that I’m actually a pretty good player. I can hold up my end of a rally just fine. It’s just that I need to know we’re playing. It can’t be all _Hey Mulder, your friends are lunatics_ one moment, then _Hey Scully, possible compliment wrapped in enough plausible deniability that it might actually be an insult coming at you at a hundred fifty miles per hour_ the next. It wasn’t fair. I wasn’t looking.

There was no point in scrambling for a response. You can’t return the serve once you’ve missed the window. You just have to let that one go, take the hit, keep playing and hope for the best.

“Did you see the way they answered the telephone?” I continued, doing my best to pretend I hadn’t heard him. I thought I might be speaking too fast and too loud, but it was impossible to tell; inside my head everything sounded muffled and distorted, like I was listening to a conversation in the next room with my ear pressed against the wall. “They probably think that every call they get is monitored and they’re followed wherever they go. It’s a form of self-delusion. It makes them think that what they’re doing is important enough that somebody would . . .”

And then I looked down and saw that my pen was bugged.

Love–30.

On the bright side, maybe whoever was listening to us would be able to make sense of Mulder’s comment. If we ever found out who it was, I’d have to remember to ask them.


End file.
